I’ve always like Australia. It seems like a nice place, giant spiders notwithstanding, and it’s on the list of places I’d love to visit someday. I’ve watched Australian TV since at least when the Australian-produced Beyond 2000 (later Beyond Tomorrow) and the ​Crocodile Hunter used to air in the U.S., and I also liked the Chaser’s War on Everything a decade ago. I’m a big fan of Danger Five. In fact, while doing my work I live streamed the Nine Network’s Today show online most afternoons for the last ten years, until they switched to a new streaming video provider and geo-blocked me last week. (You’re dead to me now, Nine Network.) It’s a relatively fun, pleasant news show, and certainly better than the crap that cable news airs in the afternoon. And I like seeing how other parts of the world perceive events without the filter of America-centric media. But beyond my being pissed off at Nine, I saw that former Australian cricketer Shane Warne came out as an ancient astronaut theorist on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here, a popular Ten Network Australian reality show based on the UK series, itself modeled on Survivor.

Warne discussed a mixture of ancient astronaut and creationist beliefs on the program, speculating that the theory of evolution cannot be true because monkeys still exist. This repeats a common and fallacious creationist argument that misunderstands the evolutionary history of humanity and fails to recognize that modern apes and humans share a common ancestor rather than humans evolving directly from modern apes.

But rather than go the Christian creationist route, Warne speculates that space aliens “turned a few monkeys into humans,” echoing the claims of Zecharia Sitchin and Erich von Däniken for an Australian audience.

Warne went on to reveal that he has swallowed the whole Ancient Aliens enchilada, in its most reductive form. Warne believes that the Egyptian pyramids cannot be the work of human beings, something that even ancient astronaut theorist Giorgio Tsoukalos refuses to claim! Here Warne is speaking to British dancer Bonnie Lythgoe, who agreed with the ancient astronaut theory:

“Cos I’m saying, aliens. We started from aliens. Look at those pyramids, Bonnie, you couldn’t do them. You couldn’t pull them with a rope, those huge bits of brick, they make it perfectly symmetrical. Couldn’t do it. So who did it?”

When asked in 2011 if humans built the pyramids, Giorgio Tsoukalos said, “Of course we did. With assistance by ETs.”

It’s interesting to see the difference between ancient astronaut theory claims in Australia and the United States. Here, when a celebrity like Megan Fox or Katy Perry advocates for the ancient astronaut theory, the tabloid media treat it as a fun fact and don’t really push back against the idea. When a rapper came out for a flat earth, he was mocked but also given equal time to explain his views, which the media reported in detail. In the Australian media today, reporters had a field day laughing at Warne for not understanding how evolution works and labeling Warne the “Fox Mulder of the cricketing world.” The very idea that it’s a national news story in Australia when a celebrity believes in ancient astronauts is foreign to American audiences, who wouldn’t bat an eyelash if a TV personality believes in aliens. Heck, we even put ancient astronaut theorists in our Super Bowl commercials!

While I’m sure that other countries have their fair share of crazies (Australia has a number of people who believe Egyptians colonized their country, for example), perhaps the difference in media reaction reflects the fact that in the mainstream press of most of the First World evolution is a normal and accepted part of science and not a crazy ideology of the liberal elite.

The very line of reasoning used by von Daniken, that basically if I cannot figure it out then no other human is smart enough to do it either, therefore some being of greater power and knowledge must have done it instead. Some choose aliens as the ascendant beings, some choose giants, some choose various supernatural beings.

I'm waiting for someone to posit that the pyramids were build by a colony of ants, ten billion strong all being guided by a hyper intelligent hive-mind, which makes almost as much sense as the ridiculous notion I heard some years back that the pyramids were actually made out of an early form of concrete and the blocks were poured in place... as though every Egyptologist (and every tourist who ever traveled to Giza) couldn't tell stone from concrete...

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Jonathan Feinstein

2/15/2016 06:17:19 pm

Huh! Just looked that up. There are still proponents of the Concrete Pyramid hypothesis, totally ignoring that there are limestone quarries at Giza that account for the core blocks *the outer casings and the red granite used on the interior of Khufu's pyramid came from elsewhere though.

An Over-Educated Grunt

2/16/2016 11:41:47 am

Actually, it makes more sense, if you're willing to accept that the ants, as a hive-mind, were not concerned about individual casualties except as they reduced the number of available laborers, to use them as a moving carpet, extract as many ants as possible while maintaining structural support, and then as many at the edge as you can evacuate in the collapse to position each block. The idea that the blocks of the pyramids are cast-in-place concrete, though, completely ignores all sorts of factors associated with casting concrete, ignores the structure of concrete versus immediately surrounding naturally occurring geomaterials, and ignores the tremendous work required to lift concrete several hundred feet in the air for a pour.

Walt

2/15/2016 04:06:53 pm

I've had to use a VPN provider to watch Australian TV for quite a while, just like they have to do to watch Netflix. Some networks are blocking VPN addresses now, but if you want to watch it badly enough, you can setup your own.

Firstly as an Aussie, a majority of people dislike him over here and he appeals to only a few personality types. He has continually stated ridiculous things in this TV series so this will just get drowned out by the next headline grabbing incident.
Secondly even I had no idea ch9 live streams. What service do you use?

They used to live stream all of their news shows (and most of the primetime shows) at "9 jump in" (whatever that was), which replaced their MSN live feed 2 or 3 years ago, but they are now going through the all-new "9 now," which is geo-blocked.

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Tony

2/16/2016 10:58:51 pm

"Australia has a number of people who believe Egyptians colonized their country, for example"

Tut tut.

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Garth

2/17/2016 12:36:26 am

"Tut tut" - Nice work!

Warne is nowadays happy to play the fool but I don't believe he's always been like that. In the first part of his cricket career, my impression was that he seemed to be reasonably careful with the truth. It wasn't until Warne was caught out for steroid use that I first remember anything obviously disingenuous coming from him. That was the start of Warne's slide in my opinion.

Nowadays he routinely presents as anti-intellectual and in Australia, that's always been a cue for our media to take no prisoners.

I have never encountered an Australian who claims Egyptians colonized Egypt and the first time I ever heard it said was on this blog page. I'm not saying it isn't true but right now, I'm paying it the same heed that I've paid Shane Warne's ancient astronauts claim, and for the same reason.

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jack

2/20/2016 03:29:06 am

It is from Warnie... so anything from him that aint sexting messages should be taken with a mouthful of salt... :)
As for region lock stuff, i am pretty sure you can stream anything as long as you find some helpful people doing it for the load of android apps out there...
As an aussie myself I rather watch the left-WING heavy AB freaking C than lot of 7910.
Lots of stuff the Chasers did with ABC ended up on Youtube any how...
finally: May lord Alien mastermind-cthulhu come cleance the bankers and pave way for humanity...

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I'm an author and editor who has published on a range of topics, including archaeology, science, and horror fiction. There's more about me in the About Jason tab.